To serve as effectively as it does to trap us into marriage, the experience of falling in love probably must have as one of its characteristics the illusion(错觉) that the experience will last forever. This illusion is fostered(促进) in our culture by the commonly held myth of romantic love, which has its origins in our favorite childhood fairy tales, wherein(以什么方式) the prince and princess, once united, live happily forever after. The myth of romantic love tells us, in effect, that for every young man in the world there is a young woman who was “meant for him,” and vice versa. Moreover, the myth implies that there is only one man meant for a woman and only one woman for a man and this has been predetermined “in the stars.” When we meet the person for whom we are intended(预期的), recognition comes through the fact that we fall in love. We have met the person for whom all the heavens intended us, and since the match is perfect, we will then be able to satisfy all of each other’s needs forever and ever(天长地久), and therefore live happily forever after in perfect union and harmony.
Should it come to pass, however, that we do not satisfy or meet all of each other’s needs and friction(摩擦) arises and we fall out of love, then it is clear that a dreadful(糟糕透顶的) mistake was made, we misread the stars, we did not hook up(接洽妥当) with our one and only perfect match, what we thought was love was not real or “true” love, and nothing can be done about the situation except to live unhappily ever after or get divorced. While I generally find that great myths are great precisely because they represent and embody(体现) great universal truths(and will explore several such myths later in this book), the myth of romantic love is a dreadful lie. Perhaps it is a necessary lie in that it ensures the survival of the species by its encouragement and seeming(似是而非的) validation(肯定) of the falling-in-love experience that traps us into marriage. But as a psychiatrist I weep in my heart almost daily for the ghastly(可怕的) confusion and suffering that this myth fosters. Millions of people waste vast amounts of energy desperately(绝望地) and futilely(徒劳地) attempting to make the reality of their lives conform(符合) to the unreality of the myth.
Even when couples have acknowledged that the honeymoon is over, that thery are no longer romantically in love with each other and are able still to be committed to their relationship, they still cling to the myth and attempt to conform their lives to it. “Even though we have fallen out of love, if we act by sheer(完全的) will power as if we still were in love, then maybe romantic love will return to our lives,” their thinking goes. These couples prize togetherness(和睦相处).
When they enter couples group therapy(which is the setting in which my wife and I and our close colleagues conduct most serious marriage counseling(咨询服务)), they sit together, speak for each other, defend each other’s faults and seek to present to the rest of the group a united front, believing this unity to be a sign of the relative health of their marriage and a prerequisite for its improvement. Sooner or later, and usually sooner, we must tell most couples that they are too much married, too closely coupled, and that they need to establish some psychological distance from eath other before they can even begin to work constructively on their problems. Sometimes it is actually necessary to physically separate them, directing them to sit apart from each other in the group circle. It is always necessary to ask them to refrain(克制) from speaking for each other or defending each other against the group. Over and over again we must say, “Let Mary speak for herself, John,” and “John can defend himself, Mary, he’s strong enough.” Ultimately, if they stay in therapy, all couples learn that a true acceptance of their own and each other’s individuality and separateness is the only foundation upon which a mature marriage can be based and real love can grow.
Those who have read the O’ Neils’ book Open Marriage will recognize this to be a basic tenet(信条) of the open as opposed to the closed marriage. The O’ Neils were actually remarkably(非常地) gentle and restrained in their proselytizing(劝服他人) for open marriage. My work with couples has led me to the stark(明显的) conclusion that open marriage is the only kind of mature marriage that is healthy and not seriously destructive to the spiritual health and growth of the individual partners.